Sunday, 14 October 2012

Jaws 2

Plot:Four years after the events of "Jaws" Police chief Brody (Scheider) must protect the citizens of Amity once again when a second monstrous shark begins terrorizing the waters.

Review: This week I found out something quite shocking while openly declaring my love for this sequel that I
realised that there are some people out there who have actually never seen it! I
know it’s hard to believe that a movie series which was so firmly part
of most our childhood movie watching, let alone responsible for myself
still not being overly keen on swimming in the sea all these years
later. But as I looked at the glazed expression of my work colleague who
clearly had no idea about this movie, I knew that it was time to
revisit what is possibly one of the most overlooked and underrated
sequels of all time.

True it was always going to be a hard act to follow a legendry movie
such as “Jaws” which could easily be considered the definition of a
perfect movie, not only in terms of storytelling and pacing, but also
with how perfectly Spielberg tweaked each of the films shocks so that
even a giant rubber shark could be turned into a creature of childhood
scaring terror. Still with the studio having made so much money from the
first film, which alongside “Star Wars” helped create the summer
blockbuster phenomenon, it would only be a matter of time before they started
demanding a sequel, despite the fact that the shark being clearly very
much dead by the end of the first film, but such things are quickly
glossed over for here is yet another giant shark to terrorise the
residents of Amity Island, while the why, were and what the f**k of the
situation are left to the audience to figure out themselves as Police
Chief Martin Brody finds himself once again having to
deal with another oversized great white shark.

With Spielberg unable to be tempted back to direct the sequel due to a
combination of the problems which plagued the production of the first
film, which included amongst other things the fact that the shark keep
sinking, aswell as the fact that he felt he had already made the
“Definitive shark movie”. Spielberg’s decision would lead to a further
18 month period of pre-production, with the original idea for the film
to be a prequel based around the sinking of the USS Indianapolis whose
story had been so memorably relayed by Quint in the first film; however
this would later be scrapped in favour of a more straightforward sequel
with the inexperienced John D. Hancock being chosen to helm the film,
but with his limited experience in the directors chair, having only
helmed three film credits and small scale dramas, he soon found himself
feeling the pressure of directing his first epic adventure film, while
issues with the shark once again hampering production and with the
producers unhappy with his material he was soon replaced by Jeannot
Szwarc, who would later direct the equally cult “Supergirl” and “Santa
Claus: The Movie”.

Set four years after the events of the first film with Brody having
his suspicions that another shark has entered the waters of Amity Island
once again dismissed, which is overwhelmingly bizarre seeing how much
chaos the original shark caused, you would have expected the residents
to be more open to the idea of a giant shark, but alas they’d rather
dismiss his fears even major Vaughn who’d you think would have learned
better after the events of the first film. Even Brody’s kids seem to
have forgotten about the events previously, especially Mike who went
into shock after seeing the shark in original, yet here they are more
keen than ever to get back on the water, with Mike (Gruner) and
Sean (Gilpin) heading out to sea with Mike’s friends and setting up
the main meat of the story as they soon find themselves the target of
the shark.
Realising that the audiences already knew what the shark looked like
from the first film here director Szwarc instead doesn’t try like so
many other directors to play on the element of surprise again and as
such allows the audience to see a the shark a lot more than the previous
film which only hinted at the size of the shark until around two thirds
of the way through the film, when the shark was memorably fully
revealed. Here he brings a much more brutal and thanks to an early
attack sequence (which is also one of the most unintentionally funny
scenes ever shot) a heavily scarred shark.

Cranking up the action from the first film, which kept it’s attacks
sporadic as Spielberg played peek-a-boo with the shark in the build up
to his climatic showdown, here Szwarc instead goes overboard with the
shark attacks, while making anything potential game, as logic is pushed
to the backseat especially when you consider that the film features the
shark memorably attacking a helicopter. Such bizarre moments are rife
throughout the film, as plausibility is largely nothing but a passing
thought, while for some equally random reason Szwarc chooses to recreate
scenes from the original film with a slight twist and hence why we get
scenes like the discovery of an orca corpse almost mirroring the
discovery of the girls corpse on the beach or the police boat being
dragged backwards after it picks up a power cable being shot almost the
same as the Quint’s boat being pulled by the shark at the climax of the
original “Jaws”. What is most interesting about the scene were they find
the body of the orca, that a year earlier the killer whale movie “Orca”
was released which featured the orca head butting a shark in a subtle
nod to “Jaws” that the orca was infact deadlier than a shark, with this
dead orca clearly having been killed by a shark almost being like
Szwarc’s fuck you right back! However despite a high body count, there
is barely a drop of blood spilt here yet it makes zero difference as the
tension is slowly cranked up by Szwarc who manages the near impossible
of still managing to make the shark scary, even if the audience knows
what to expect and even pulls out more than a few original shocks along
the way.

One of the strengths here though is the amount of returning cast
members we do get, especially with so many of the characters being so
memorable it only makes it better that we get to see them again here,
especially in terms of Lorraine Gary who once more returns as Ellen
Brody and who shares such great onscreen chemistry with Roy Scheider,
that it’s hard to not see them as a real couple and even though
Scheider’s return here was only to get out of a contractual obligation
he had with the studio, after he quit the role of Steven Pushkov in “The
Deer Hunter” two weeks prior to the start of shooting. Still despite
this he still brings back his grizzled charm to the role he made so
memorable to begin with and despite his reasons for being involved in
the film, he doesn’t let it show here, as his performance here is just
as memorable as the first, even if it is more action orientated than
before, with the scenes of him interacting with his family now nothing
but an afterthought, for while the first film might have been as much
about people as it was about the shark, this film instead prefers to
keep the focus solely on the shark.

Despite having the imposing task of following up on Spielberg’s
classic original, I would argue that blow for blow that this film is
just as good as the original, while perhaps lacking some of Spielberg’s
finesse it still holds its own when compared to the original and even
with it’s more bonkers moments it still remains an overlooked classic,
overshadowed by the god awful sequels which followed and as a result
dragged this film down with them and leaving most people with the
misconception that the original was the only film in the series of note
and when compared to the shark films which followed in its wake this is a
gold star standard shark movie.

Google+ Badge

About Me

Owner of "From the Depths of DVD Hell" a love letter to the cinema I adore, with the main focus being to look away from the mainstream and instead look more in the direction of Cult, Foreign and Obsure cinema and everything that comes in between.

I try to add somthing new atleast once a week, but I'd rather keep this blog fun to write and so i'm not neglecting commitments outside of this blog.

About The Blog

Basically this is my love letter to the cinema I adore, with the main focus being to look away from the mainstream and instead look more in the direction of Cult, Foreign and Obsure cinema and everything that comes in between.This blog is also about keeping movie going fun and embracing the randomness, that can often be found, while also uncovering the occastional hidden great, often in the most unlikely of places.

I try to add somthing new atleast once a week, but I'd rather keep this blog fun to write and so i'm not neglecting commitments outside of this blog.

Wanna Contact Me?

Got somthing you'd like to ask outside of the blog? Got stuff to send me?